News

The Serpents and I are looking forward to playing again at the U.S. National Whitewater Center, Sunday, May 28, this time on the same bill with Shovels and Rope. We will have both vinyl and CD copies of the new album, "Run Skeleton Run" for sale. We will be cranking out songs from the new record, as well as some from older releases, and covers we feel like playing. We're stoked. Hope to see you there. dc

I'm going back to Mountain Stage Radio Show in Charleston, West Virginia, to perform with the Serpents, on Sunday, May 7. We're on a bill with Loudon Wainwright III, Mipso, Nancy & Ruth, and Liz Longley. This will be the third time Robert and I have played the show; Geoff's second time; and Korey's first. We will be joined by special guest Sue Foley on guitar.

We will have vinyl and CD copies of the new album, "Run Skeleton Run", as well as T-shirts, for sale.

shows

Press

Singer-songwriter David Childers mixes sounds from the Cumberland gap with indie and pop moods on this album produced by Don Dixon of R.E.M. fame. Childers sings with a rich blue-grassy voice while playing guitar and harmonica along with Robert Childers/dr, orey Dudley/b, Geoffrey White/fid, Dale Shoemaker/g, and Dixon/key, The team sounds folksy with the violin on the acoustic “Greasy Dollar” and the team can deliver and easy beat boogie during “Promise to the Wind.” An indie-British pop feel is on the bouncy “Radio Moscow” and punk riffs are strumming on the title track, whereas a trucker’s mood is created on the ballad “Ghostland” and a Nashville Skyline is seen with mandolin on the charming “Thanks to All (Long Ago). Modern western wear. Read More >

There are certain singer-songwriters, brilliant ones, who live and work in towns across the United States. White guys, in their 50s and 60s, who've benefitted in countless ways from the advantages of their demographic classification, yet remain unsung heroes of music in the Woody Guthrie continuum. These are guys who never achieved the recognition of a Bob Dylan or Steve Earle. The larger pop world pays little attention to their work, but they create anyhow, because that's what they do. Guys like Nathan Bell, over in Chattanooga, Tenn., or Butch Hancock, out in West Texas.

Run Skeleton Run, David Childers’ sixth solo album (Ramseur Records, March 5th), starts off with the title track, a raucous warning to a discontented skeleton that refuses to rest in peace, and it ends with “Goodbye to Growing Old,” a declaration of his acceptance of the passage of years. In between, Childers sings about the lure of Communism in his youth and about a flood that took down a train. He tells stories: an American sailor cutting loose on leave, a snowy hunting trip with a dog, a hermit who died on the beach. He uses the characters to explore the demons humans all wrestle with–lust, dishonesty, fear and loneliness. The album travels on a wide, rambling road through the Americana landscape, bringing in rockabilly and country influences, a folk sensibility, and some Cajun-spiced fiddle along the way.

You don’t have to know anything about David Childers to appreciate this album, with its addictive collection of evocative vignettes, but I’m going to tell you some things anyway. Read More >

"For his latest, even though he calls his current band the Serpents, the title cut reverts to his Mt. Holly Hellcats rockabilly sound. Son Robert is back on drums, pounding out a stiff framework supporting Dale Shoemaker's twangy surf guitar, Childers laying down some Jerry Lee-style vocals on top. Scott Avett sets up the tone with a poem about two drunkards' offspring who never got a word of thanks for his bank robbing career and died “so cold and sober his corpse never stank.'' Read More

Singer-songwriter David Childers will release his new album Run Skeleton Run on May 5 and today we're excited to premiere the title track from that album. Produced by early R.E.M. production team of Don Dixon, the album also features a guest appearance from Scott Avett of The Avett Brothers.